a. Field of Invention
The invention relates generally to vehicle door movement control devices, and, more particularly, to a mechanism for vehicle rear door articulation, for example, in a pickup truck, with the mechanism permitting unsequenced opening or closing articulation of up to 180° of a rear door.
b. Description of Related Art
As is known in the art, automobile designs are governed by a variety of ergonomic and operational factors. For doors and other such components, the design is generally based on ergonomic factors such as exterior appearance, and the location and visibility of hinges, latches and adjacent components, and operational factors such as the ingress/egress opening provided, the maximum clearance required for opening/closing a door, and crash performance.
For pickup trucks, sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) and other such vehicles which are designed to accommodate ingress/egress of several passengers and also provide means for transport of large goods, the ingress/egress opening and maximum clearance required for opening/closing a door can be of particular importance. For example, a typical pickup truck having front and back driver/passenger doors may include a C-pillar mounted rear door which pivots relative to the C-pillar in a similar manner as the A-pillar mounted front door to thus provide a relatively large and unobstructed ingress/egress opening without the intermediate B-pillar. In typical pickup trucks, the rear door pivots approximately 90°, thus limiting the ingress/egress area for occupants or for loading/unloading of objects. The access and loading is made particularly difficult, if not impossible, if a vehicle is parked adjacent to the truck and is sufficiently close to prevent an occupant from boarding or loading to enter the area between the front and rear door (when open), invariably known as parking lot entrapment.
In an effort to address such parking lot entrapment concerns, a host of pivoting rear door designs, such as the design disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,032,953 to Rangnekar, have been proposed.
Specifically, referring to FIGS. 5 and 7-13 of Rangnekar, Rangnekar discloses a vehicle door hinge assembly (40) configured and arranged such that rear door (20) is swingably mounted to door mounting pillar (24) for movement between a closed position to a first open position in which the door pivots approximately 90° relative to the closed position about first vertical pivot axis (A1). After reaching the first open position, door hinge assembly (40) is configured such that rear door (20) then pivots about second vertical pivot axis (A2) to open approximately 170° relative to the closed position.
Thus, whereas the hinge assembly (40) of Rangnekar provides for pivoting of rear door (20) up to 170°, as is readily evident from FIGS. 7-13 of Rangnekar, assembly (40) is relatively complex in design and may thus be readily susceptible to failure due to the number of components. More importantly, as discussed above, assembly (40) first allows for pivoting of door (20) to approximately 90° and thereafter to approximately 170°. The 90° stop is provided by latch mechanism (50) (see FIGS. 11, 12) which operates in a sequenced open/close manner, thus limiting the position from which door (20) can be opened/closed if additional intermediate stops are needed.
It would therefore be of benefit to provide a mechanism for permitting opening and closing of a rear door that is not sequenced to open/close in a set manner, but can be opened/closed through rotation of a door or the hinge in any order, and in continuous increments of either operation. It would also be of benefit to provide a mechanism that includes a minimal number of components, thus simplifying the overall design, operation and reducing the related design and assembly costs for the mechanism.